ETH Zurich now receiving project data from the SNSF via an interface

As a national funding body and a promoter of fundamental research, the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) is one of the most important sources of funding for research at ETH Zurich. Last year alone, ETH researchers had around 300 new projects approved. For each project, the researchers need a new account, which is used to receive project data and to file contract documents.

New project accounts are set up automatically at ETH Zurich based on the information provided by the SNSF. Thanks to the newly established data interface, not only do researchers no longer need to apply for funding accounts to be opened, but they can also use the ETH information and support system ETHIS to gain quick online access to the approval documentation and the project data which has been collected.

Reducing time and cost

With a view to reducing the time and cost spent by the university on collecting data, one of ETH Zurich’s priorities was to ensure that the SNSF opens its database up to what are known as the “grant administration offices”.

ETH Zurich became the first Swiss university to reach an agreement with the SNSF to this effect in December 2013 as part of the “Grants Management” project. It was agreed that ETH would receive all the data it needs for managing the financial aspects of a project or any information that has already been published by the SNSF – such as project titles, the names of grant recipients, funding amounts, funding periods and generally comprehensible abstracts – via an interface.

This also includes key documents such as approval documentation. The interface has been undergoing testing since the spring and has now been put into routine operation, right in time for the SNSF’s autumn round of grant allocations. Customer advisors in the Funds Management unit can now obtain daily updates on new projects and notifications of changes to ongoing projects from the SNSF systems, making it much easier for ETH not only to open accounts for new grants and file contracts, but also to add new information such as extensions of funding periods.

An outstanding partnership

“There was a great deal of conceptual work to do, but thanks to our outstanding partnership with our colleagues from the SNSF and the proficient support provided by IT Services, we have made excellent progress. We are now hoping that the researchers will also feel the benefit of the reduced administrative workload and appreciate it. My colleagues in Funds Management are already very happy with the new solution,” said Raffael Walter, who has been assisting with the interface project on behalf of ETH Zurich’s accounting team.

All information and PDF documents received from the SNSF regarding a specific grant are stored by ETH Zurich as part of the account data. This ensures that they are kept in the central system and can be retrieved by the grant recipients or their professors online via ETHIS. The documents can be found in the ETHIS eDossier “Fonds”, while an overview of the grant data collected is provided by the ETHIS report “Grants & Contracts”.

The SNSF data is available to view in the account information under: “ETHIS/ Finanzen/ Grants & Contracts” or “ETHIS/ Finanzen/ eDossier Fonds”.